Technologies studied
Chemical and physico-chemical recycling of plastic waste

The study focuses on chemical and physicochemical recycling, which refers to several processes. The technologies studied fall into three main categories:

• dissolution: these processes use specific solvents to purify the polymers. The polymers remain at the polymer stage;

• chemical treatment (solvolysis): these technologies use a solvent (e.g. alcohol) to depolymerize polymers and return them to smaller molecules (monomers, dimers or oligomers);

• heat treatment: these high-temperature processes enable us to return to the monomer stage or even the initial components, depending on the composition of the inputs and the technology in question.

A selection of the main chemical and physicochemical recycling technologies for plastic waste currently...